NHL 2002

Below are my Top 10 Reasons to buy this NHL game!

1 - You can adjust the settings on every aspect of the game from the friction speed of the puck, to the amount of goalie rebounds, to the sheer aggression of the players.

2 - Not only are there various difficulty settings but there are also player and goalie BOOST settings. So if you want to use Detroit but you're playing a friend who has never played, you can lower your goalie boost so it's easier to score on him. This is a great touch to help any team or player feel like they can win.

3 - The sheer controls. Each of the Xbox's 8 buttons is used. There's a lot going on and it all has a good level of importance, from the "dump in", to the poke check, to the deke move, or dive and block shot. In the blur of a game it's also easy to panic and hit the wrong button...KEEP YOUR GAME FACE ON!

4 - Coaching strategies are a nice touch which can allow you to set your offense and defense to the settings that work best for you (rush the net, behind the net offense, point, triangle, etc...). If you're down two goals you can change the offense to 100% rush the net...and it actually works...you may not get the goal but you'll have the pressure.

5 - Sound and graphics are excellent (as would be expected on the Xbox)...naturally. You can create your own player to excellent detail.

6 - Players can all go on Hot and Cold streaks during a season. And it actually means something. Don't play a tired goalie whatever you do...that boy needs rest!

7 - Officials on the ice! And yes they can get in the way.

8 - There's the Olympics in the tournament mode so you can play with the good old USA! Or give Team Belarus their day in the sun!

9 - You can unlock extra bonuses (like how your player celebrates after scoring a goal) by completing tasks throughout your games (some tasks include...score three goals in one period, get two power play goals, complete a shutout, etc...).

10 - To the best of my humble knowledge there's yet to be a flaw that allows an easy goal. If anything in the harder modes, goals are just hard to come by...and yet not impossible. It feels like you have to work hard to get a goal, and there's a real momentum to the game...if you can't clear the puck from your zone you can feel real pressure that a goal will be imminent!

The only drawback to the game is the fighting which amounts to nothing but button-mashing...but since the NHL is trying to weed out fighting I bet they're happy with it.

All in all this game is a clear BREAKAWAY SUCCESS for EA!

The announcers could be better and have more chatter. It would have been really cool if they could have gotten the home announcers for each team to record some dialog.

Some of the team selection is neat. You can choose teams based on the all star team roster and the national team rosters. The amount of tweaking and tuning that you can do with this game is huge. I've owned the game for a few days and haven't really bothered yet to turn many of the knobs yet.

The biggest disappointment is that the players do not really appear to be based on the actual players. I'd hope the graphics would resemble the actual player and their actions (such as after scoring a goal) would be like the actual player. hey, this is a DVD. Let's use up all those gigs of space!

It looks like they aren't doing networked play which [is disapointing]. It would be really neat to have 4 humans against 4 humans over the network.

In general, if you want a 'realistic' game, buy this. If you want a simplified 'action' game, get NHL Hitz... or you can do what I did and get both!